Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!udel!news.sprintlink.net!news.onramp.net!statsci.com!peter
From: peter@statsci.com (Peter Schumacher)
Subject: Re: "Sie" in german
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: thyme
Message-ID: <DA7KMw.JJL@statsci.com>
Sender: news@statsci.com (Usenet News Account)
Organization: Statistical Sciences, Seattle, WA, USA, Earth
X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #3 (NOV)
References: <3r13ak$rkj@eng_ser1.erg.cuhk.hk> <3r33a8$dg8@agate.berkeley.edu> <holman-070695142152@porsumac1.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 09:49:44 GMT
Lines: 42

holman@katk.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) writes:

>In article <3r33a8$dg8@agate.berkeley.edu>, coby@euler.Berkeley.EDU (Coby
>(Jacob) Lubliner) wrote:


>> As far as I know, German is the only language that uses the 3rd
>> person plural as the polite form.  Until the 18th century the
>> 2nd person plural (Ihr) was commonly used, as it was in most other
>> European languages, with some special forms for particularly
>> illustrious personages.

"Ihr" as a singular form indicates to me an even higher level of deference
that "Sie". Is this archaic?

Note also that usage of the third person to indicate deference exists even
in English, if not pronominally: "your majesty", "your grace", "your
honour" are all technically third person. Indeed, one isn't even referring
to the person directly, but rather to a quality ascribed to them.  How
polite.

>In Swedish and Finnish there was until recently, a tendency to use
>circumlocutions in the third person when talking to someone deferentially:

This exists in Japanese as well, except it's simpler because verbs do not
change endings across persons, so it's just a matter of omitting the
pronoun. One avoids using any equivalent of "you", except in informal
speech. If one is really in a position where one has to use "you" to
convey an unambiguous meaning, then in formal speech "sochira" [lit.
"over there"] is possible. But I doubt whether even that is acceptable in
the higher forms known as humble and exalting speech.

It is quite illuminating to discover how much one can really say without
using "I" or "you" ...


Peter Schumacher
peter@statsci.com
-- 

Peter Schumacher
peter@statsci.com
